{"id":509775,"date":"2026-01-12T01:47:21","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T01:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/509775\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T01:47:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T01:47:21","slug":"skylar-diggins-talks-life-as-a-wnba-working-mom-her-gremlin-reputation-and-the-future-of-womens-basketball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/509775\/","title":{"rendered":"Skylar Diggins Talks Life as a WNBA Working Mom, Her \u201cGremlin\u201d Reputation, and the Future of Women\u2019s Basketball"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cNobody was taking our pictures when I first got into the league 12 years ago,\u201d says Skylar Diggins<\/strong>, Seattle Storm point guard, six-time WNBA All Star, three-time All WNBA team member and Olympic gold medal champion. \u201cNow, with so much attention on the WNBA, we have the \u2018tunnel runway,\u2019 people debut high fashion collaborations and products\u2014you can use that entrance into a walking billboard.\u201d Diggins, previously known as Diggins-Smith (she recently dropped the \u201cSmith\u201d from her uniform after filing for divorce from her husband of eight years) is considered one of the most fashionable and fiercely competitive WNBA veterans. \u201cThe biggest change in the WNBA now is accessibility,\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019re on national TV, there\u2019s more branding, and the game stands for more opportunities for girls to want to play basketball globally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here, Diggins, the number three pick in the 2013 draft, who, prior to joining the Storm, played for the Dallas Wings and the Phoenix Mercury, talks to Lisa Robinson about the buzz around the sport, her \u201cgremlin\u201d reputation, her push for better resources for pregnant players (which led to a package of reforms unofficially known as \u201cthe Skylar clause\u201d), Brittney Griner\u2019s incarceration, and the new women\u2019s Unrivaled league.<\/p>\n

The WNBA has a new collective bargaining agreement coming up, and other than the extreme inequity in pay between the men\u2019s and women\u2019s leagues, what are some of the changes you want to see?<\/p>\n

With the new CBA, we do have some power to capitalize on the success we\u2019ve had. For the greater good of the league, salary is the number one thing we\u2019re going to fight for, and collectively, figure out quality of life things. We\u2019re 144 different people in this league and we prioritize different things. For me, I\u2019m going to be talking about more benefits for moms. When you switch teams and move to a different city, trying to find resources; childcare, a pediatrician, a school, playdates.<\/p>\n

Of all your many accomplishments and accolades, what are you most proud of?<\/p>\n

The 2021 Olympic gold medal is what sticks out the most. Especially being a mom. I went to a lot of Olympic camps and didn\u2019t make the team, so I tried again in four years. We had the Covid year, but then, when I was able to make the team, I had my son, and it wasn\u2019t like I played a lot of minutes, but what I had to do to get myself on that team made me proud. Without sounding corny, I\u2019ve gone through a lot in this league and I\u2019ve labeled myself as an overcomer.<\/p>\n

What was the hardest thing to overcome?<\/p>\n

Coming back from the birth of my second child in 2023\u2026After I had my son, when I came back to Dallas training camp, I had post-partum depression. I wasn\u2019t really able to run around, I was breast feeding, I couldn\u2019t travel, I wasn\u2019t feeling good. I had to tell the team I couldn\u2019t leave my baby; I had to take a leave of absence, and was gone from the team for a month. As the season went on, they told my assistant coach to stop working me out and started treating me funny. So, I asked to leave Dallas and in 2019 they traded me to Phoenix. In Phoenix, I told my coach I\u2019m probably going to have another baby during that contract\u2014then BG [Brittney Griner] got locked up in 2022. That year was wild, to say the least. BG and I were really close at the time, and trying to figure out what was going on with our teammate, trying to figure out how we could be a support to her\u2014[with] nobody telling us a lot of information\u2014that season was stressful. Then I got pregnant. Nobody really knew, but towards the end of that season, I had to take a leave of absence because of some complications with my pregnancy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cNobody was taking our pictures when I first got into the league 12 years ago,\u201d says Skylar Diggins,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":509776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[129708,62,5921,67,132,68,1940,232],"class_list":{"0":"post-509775","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-splitscreenimageleftinset","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-style","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us","14":"tag-web","15":"tag-wnba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115879611233529740","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}